Friday, November 06, 2009

Sources, please?

And yet more questions. Looks like it's going to be that kind of day.

Julian Borger has some (possibly) new news on Iran's weapons program of some time back. But it seems to me that the real news would be who's putting this material out.

Borger says it's from the IAEA's "Possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme" document, colloquially described as the "secret annexe". But who's giving it to him? Diplomatic sources around the IAEA are famously leaky. There are differences of opinion within the IAEA about whether the document should be made generally available.

So is the leaker IAEA or not? A concerned citizen who believes the information should get out? Someone who wants to bollix up the negotiations now in progress?

Getting the document out might circumvent the undoubtedly selective releases of dribs and drabs of information. Borger even says (downcolumn, after the excitement has been stirred) that whatever Iran did was before 2004 and thus potentially consistent with the NIE finding that Iran ended its weapons program by 2003.

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